In this introductory chapter we outline the most important conceptual issues that tend to emerge in the analysis of childlessness (Sec. 1.2), and offer a more detailed outline of the contents of this volume (Sec. A high prevalence of childlessness has also been observed for the North American family system, where "the single adult was a significant part of the American population in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (Rindfuss et al. 1988: 61) An exceptional case is Finland: in the Nordic context, Finland has always had relatively high levels of childlessness.
The first paper in this larger section is by Ann Berrington, who explores trends in childlessness in the UK. In the next chapter, Kreyenfeld and Konietzka explore childlessness trends in East and West Germany. The author shows how in many European countries, even in the USA, the lack of children had increased for groups born around 1900.
Beginning with cohorts born in the 1940s, black women were more likely than white women to have children.
Literature
In Germany, women's pensions are highly subsidized, as a woman automatically collects pension points for each birth. Marco Albertini and Martin Kohli examine how the elderly receive and give support within their social networks, and the extent to which they engage in charitable work. Social networks and support for parents and childless adults in the second half of life: Convergence, divergence, or stability.
Public acceptance of voluntary childlessness in the Netherlands: from 20 to 90 percent in 30 years. The third-party images or other materials in this chapter are included in the Creative Commons license of the work, unless otherwise noted in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work's Creative Commons license and the action in question is not permitted by statutory regulation, users must obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, modify or reproduce the material.
Childlessness in Europe: Reconstructing Long-Term Trends Among Women Born
Introduction
A single individual unencumbered by family commitments is the winner in the race for the greatest career and material success in life (McDonald 2002). According to Beck, the ultimate market society is a childless society. However, such an alarmist perspective can be countered by noting the low percentage of respondents who state that childlessness is their reproductive ideal (Miettinen and Szalma 2014; Sobotka and Beaujouan 2014; see also Kuhnt et al., Chap. 11, in this volume). Rather than being consistently planned from an early age, childlessness is often driven by a mix of adverse circumstances and adjustments to unforeseen events, such as infertility, poor health, lack of a suitable partner, and partnership dissolution (Gray et al. al. 2013; Heaton et al. 1999).
Many women and men of childbearing age therefore adopt a strategy of persistently delaying childbearing (Berrington 2004), which increases the likelihood that they will gradually adapt to their 'child-free' lifestyle, and ultimately lose interest in will lose having a child (Rindfuss 2004). et al. 1988; Veevers 1980). But are theoretical expectations about increasing childlessness in Europe actually supported by empirical trends? Several national studies published over the past decade have provided broad evidence that can be used to answer these questions.
These studies are based on census and register data (Rowland 2007), cohort data derived from reconstructed series of period fertility rates (Dorbritz and Ruckdeschel 2007; Frejka and Sardon 2004), or a mixture of different data sources (Miettinen et al. 2015). In this study, I take advantage of the rapid growth in recent years in the availability of data on cohort fertility and cohort parity distribution. By combining different datasets, I aim to provide the most detailed evidence to date on childlessness in Europe.
I reconstruct the long-term evolution of childlessness in 30 European countries among women born from the beginning of the twentieth century to 1972. I also analyze shifts in the geographic differentiation of childlessness, as until recently there was a clear east-west divide, with central and eastern Europe having unusually low rates without children. Finally, I suggest that the childlessness rates among women born around 1970 are not unusually high compared to those of women born in the early twentieth century.
Data and Methods
- Reliability of Childlessness Estimates
- Data Sources on Permanent Childlessness: Drawbacks and Advantages
- Country Coverage, Data, and Assumptions Employed
The biggest challenge researchers faced was capturing the process of recovering delayed first birth rates at late childbearing ages, as the number of first births among women who were over 35 increased. Assuming that all the missing responses are from childless women, a simple adjustment can be made (El-Badry 1961). Since these data are often based on a small sample of the population (typically several thousand respondents), cohort childlessness estimates made on the basis of these data are unstable and unsuitable for more detailed analyses.
In addition, because many survey samples are not representative of the entire female population in terms of family size, they may provide biased estimates without children. Population register data In Europe, many countries, including the Nordic countries, the Baltic states, the Netherlands and Slovenia, have established population registers that contain records of demographic events for all residents in the country. As they can be combined with other registers, they provide a wide scope for detailed analyzes of the determinants of childlessness (for an excellent analysis of the educational gradient of childlessness and cohort fertility in the Nordic countries, see Andersson et al. 2009).
The first is that it is difficult to cover the reproductive histories of the entire population, especially those of migrant women, for whom the number of children born before arriving in the country may not be known or reported. In combination with official estimates of the female population by age and year of birth, these data can be used to estimate fertility rates. Finally, estimates of the female population distribution by age may be strongly influenced by incomplete reporting of migration.
The census and survey data considered in the analysis were for women who were under 80 years of age at the time of the census, as selectivity due to differential mortality above that age was thought to be too great. Main data sources The selected data sources for each of the countries are described in Appendix 1. In addition to the census data, the HFD also contains annual register-based or official estimates of the parity composition of women by age for Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
The main sources of childlessness estimates based on vital statistics are the Human Fertility Database (2015a) and the author's own. 3 These data are not part of the main "output" data set of the HFD, as their purpose is to provide estimates of the parity distribution of women of childbearing age, which serve as input to construct fertility tables in the database.
Long-Term Developments in Childlessness in Europe
In theory, the time series of period data on fertility by birth order from the Human Fertility Collection (HFC 2015) could also be used to generate estimates of lifetime childlessness, but for most European countries these estimates either cover relatively few cohorts or are too unstable to be used that purpose.
Evidence for 30 Countries
Diversity and Contrasts in Childlessness Trends
Countries and Broader European Regions
Discussion and Conclusions
Among cohorts born at the beginning of the twentieth century, childlessness rates were high (typically more than 20%) in all countries for which data are available except Slovakia. In relation to childlessness rates in both older and younger cohorts, rates between these cohorts were low (Rowland 2007). The timing and intensity of the subsequent increase in childlessness varied significantly by region.
However, the data on women born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who reached adulthood during the collapse of state socialist political systems in Central and Eastern European countries, indicate that this long-standing difference is now eroding. is. In contrast, the trend towards increasing childlessness seems to be leveling off – and in some cases (eg in Switzerland, England and Wales) even reversing – in much of Western Europe, the Scandinavian countries and the three predominantly German countries. speaking countries of Europe. I have not analyzed the specific factors that contributed to the differences between countries in the level of childlessness, and to the increase in childlessness among women born in the 1950s and 1960s.
In addition, there is a high degree of historical and cultural continuity over time in levels of childlessness (Morgan 1991), suggesting that countries where childlessness was widespread in the past are likely to have high rates of childlessness in the future. because women and men are socialized in circumstances where childlessness is common and generally accepted. It is important to note that recent childlessness levels in most of the countries analyzed are still well below historical highs, and that current childlessness levels are not as high as might be expected given the range of interrelated factors discussed in the introduction. have been outlined and that may influence childlessness. It is expected to encourage women and men to remain childless. Among women born in the 1970s and early 1980s, childlessness is likely to increase, especially in South and Central-Eastern Europe, while it could stabilize in other regions.
Childlessness rates are likely to be highest in southern European countries, particularly Italy and Spain; and maybe. An important source of uncertainty about the childfree future lies in the interplay between delaying fertility and the ability of couples and individuals to implement their childbearing plans later in life. This pattern of “continuous postponement” may also be associated with stronger fluctuations in childlessness rates in the future.
